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The chapter aims to enhance our understanding of “opportunity” in the context of social entrepreneurship through a paradigm interplay juxtaposing a functionalist thematic analysis and interpretivist sensemaking. This paradigmatic contrasting identifies differences and connections in the tensions of: linearity and simplicity/dynamism and complexity; forward/backward, generalizability/situated relationality, and value-laden/value-neutral. These contrasts deepen our understanding of “opportunity” so that the theoretical and practical implications can be seen.

If we are to better understand what it means to think “sustainably,” the entrepreneurship literature suggests that entrepreneurial cognition offers us two powerful tools. Human cognition operates with two nearly parallel systems for information processing, intentional and automatic. Entrepreneurial cognition has long focused on how entrepreneurial thinking and action are inherently intentional. Thus, intentions-based approaches are needed to understand how to encourage the identification of actionable sustainable opportunities. But first, however, we need to address key elements of our automatic processing, anchored on deep assumptions and beliefs. In short, if sustainable entrepreneurship is about addressing sustainable opportunities, then before we can take advantage of research into entrepreneurial intentions, we need a better understanding of how we enact our deep mental models of constructs such as “sustainable.”

This chapter is aimed at developing a conceptual framework for the internationalization process of social business (SB). The study has been conducted by reviewing the literature on social entrepreneurship, SB, and internationalization of small business. The study indicated that the internationalization decision for SB is taken by the motivation to create a social impact in the target foreign location. Based on the analyses and related literature, the entrepreneur-specific, firm-specific, and context-specific factors affecting the internationalization decision of social entrepreneurs are presented. As part of the framework, the chapter explains opportunity identification and the internationalization implementation phases for SBs. One of the key contributions of the chapter is the depiction of an internationalization framework for SB, which is an innovative addition to social entrepreneurship literature. The framework developed here could help social entrepreneurs to take decisions for scaling their businesses internationally.

The study explores the decision-making logics driving the usage of social media among internationalising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and how it supports entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. The author draws on qualitative data from four internationalising firms all of which had adopted social media. The findings show that causal decision-making logic is the main element driving the initial usage of social media (i.e. pre-adoption). Concerning ongoing usage, the author found evidence of both causal and effectual logic; the choice being dependent on the firm’s resources. The findings also show that both drivers of social media users have a paramount role in entrepreneurial opportunity recognition.

Social enterprise organizations (SEOs) arise from entrepreneurial activities with the aim to achieve social goals. SEOs have been identified as alternative and/or complementary to the actions of governments and international organizations to address poverty and poverty-related social needs. Using a number of illustrative cases, we explore how variation of local institutional mechanisms shapes the local “face of poverty” in different communities and how this relates to variations in the emergence and strategic orientations of SEOs. We develop a model of the productive opportunity space for SEOs as a basis and an inspiration for further scholarly inquiry.

In this chapter, we review and examine the differences and similarities between social, sustainable, and environmental entrepreneurship. We explore the concepts, key questions, empirical methodologies, and disciplinary roots that differentiate and relate these emergent interest areas. The result of this comparative analysis inevitably raises the question of whether these new literature streams are inclusive or separate from the traditional domain of entrepreneurship research. We find that these three areas share many similarities, yet are distinguishable from one another and from more traditional, commercial forms of entrepreneurship. However, we determine that although these three areas of entrepreneurial scholarship raise unique questions and highlight different types of phenomena, they are not their own fields of study, but rather promising contexts for studying key questions of the entrepreneurship field.

This chapter presents a critical examination of the interaction between concepts such as equity and accessibility in a framework of sustainable and inclusive urban development. The analysis compiles a series of reflections that build on previous research that focusses on the role of transport as enabler of opportunities for material and social capital, healthcare and leisure, which contribute to human development and well-being. The research discusses accessibility metrics for mandatory and non-mandatory travel in the context of current global agendas for social and development policies. It also introduces methodological reflections in relation to the analysis of accessibility indices from an equity perspective highlighting the role of equity metrics such as the Palma ratio and Lorenz curves. The authors link accessibility and urban development seeking to inform current approaches for policy development and assessment in a context of high manifested inequity. The research is set in the context of the Bogotá Metropolitan Region, a paradigmatic case of transport development and policy in the Global South. The findings seek to contribute to present transport policy and practice, providing relevant insights to support actions that redistribute accessibility to opportunities and questioning some of the paradigms of mainstream transport planning in cities like Bogotá, suggesting a more relevant role of transport policy as a potential engine of equity and social development.

Many megacities in the Global South have developed without any systematically regularized modernization processes. Therefore, urbanization is accompanied by the inappropriate level of economic and social opportunities. This macro-structural constraint of urbanization contributes to frame the patterns and features of many location-based poverty and inequality.

Dhaka followed the similar trajectory of development without creating substantial opportunities for its underclass, poor, and marginalized citizens. This unequal pattern of development influences the disproportionate environmental burdens of the marginalized people, who have little or no voice in the urban decision-making process. People experience unequal environmental inequality through their differential exposures to poor housing and/or living conditions, along with a lack of access to safe drinking water, sewage, adequate waste disposal systems, and so on.

In this context of urban injustice, this environmental justice movement (EJM) is an evidence of demanding basic rights among the unprivileged citizens. To some extent, this is a response to the state’s structural failure to provide urban environmental services (and social justice) to majority of its poor citizens.

Evidence suggests that in context of fragile democracy, an EJM can generate opportunities for progressive urban politics as well as contribute to redistributive development opportunities for its poor and marginalized citizens. Most megacities in the Global South inherit urban governance from their colonial heritages, which were often criticized for its citizen-detached and top-down nature.

Dhaka is not an exception in this context. In the present socio-political condition, even though the environmental movement is not very welcomed by the government – more particularly from the ruling political party – it can have tremendous implications on redistributive urban politics. This chapter focuses on Dhaka, which is currently one of the world’s largest megacities in the Global South.

This chapter highlights the local patterns and process of the unequal environmental burdens and the subsequent mobilization, demanding environmental justice in that process, as well as how that movement contributes to redistributive urban politics. The discussions of this chapter also have the implications on public policy discourse focusing on environmental rights, movements, and citizens-centered politics in the megacities of the Global South, with renewed relationships between the state and its citizens.

This chapter considers the role of entrepreneurship theory in the development of ideation techniques for entrepreneurship education. It begins by considering how metatheories impact theory construction in entrepreneurship research and discusses the role of ontology, epistemology, axiology, as well as the role of assumptions about human nature and social change. The chapter presents four different paradigms of thought that apply different philosophies and illustrates how these different paradigms conceptualize entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial opportunity differently. The four paradigms include the equilibrium paradigm, the disequilibrium paradigm, the disruptive innovation paradigm, and the social constructionism paradigm. Within each paradigm, the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity is discussed, and the chapter provides examples to show how different ideation techniques can be generated from these different conceptualizations. Forms of ideation technique are presented and explained, as they relate to each paradigm, and the chapter concludes by explaining the value of these techniques for ideation, opportunity discovery, and creation, in the entrepreneurial process.

The aim of this chapter is to explore employee behaviors and expectations of the role of social media when searching for jobs, to offer recruiters and companies valuable insights to design and manage appropriate web-based employer branding and recruitment strategies.

The research strategy is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews involving 34 central informants: talented Gen Yers and social media recruitment experts and mangers. The project focuses on the Italian context, an exemplary country with the highest social media penetration rate.

The results demonstrate the “bounded” popularity of social media as a recruitment tool among Gen Yers who implement up to five active and passive behaviors, albeit not all widespread, according to varying patterns and using different social media for different purposes: receiving, seeking, sharing, leading, and experiencing. Gen Yers, with aims that vary in line with various staffing phases, collect and share rumors and voices from both internal and controlled organizational sources but also, and above all, from external and organizational sources that companies do not control directly.

Social media seem to offer appealing and valuable opportunities to attract and engage talented young individuals, sustaining the quality, quantity, and fairness of employment relationships. Conversely, they also involve some organizational risks and costs. The chapter offers some managerial cautions and advocates a radical change in the prevalent HRM mindset for the improved management of transparency that social media solutions entail.

Results contribute in understanding how social media can better sustain employer branding and recruitment activities, especially considering the needs and expectations of talented young employees and professionals in the Italian context. Italy is an emblematic context, where the social media potential appears to be extremely interesting, considering its high rate of social media penetration.